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Victoria, Queen of England (1837-1901)

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£ 3 528
Auction dateClassic
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
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United Kingdom, London
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ID 1108988
Lot 188 | Victoria, Queen of England (1837-1901)
Victoria, Queen of England (1837-1901)
Autograph letter signed with initials (‘V.R.I.’) to [Alfred,] Lord Tennyson, Windsor Castle, 6 March 1887
10 pages, 178 x 113mm, on three bifolia, black-edged mourning paper headed Windsor Castle with 'VR' monogram. Envelope. Provenance: Sotheby's, 21 & 22 July 1980, lot 451.

On her loneliness without Prince Albert: Queen Victoria thanks her Poet Laureate for his Jubilee Ode, but confesses to her conflicting feelings about the upcoming celebrations without her husband by her side. The Queen thanks Tennyson for ‘the beautiful Ode you have written for my Jubilee’, adding that Princess Beatrice greatly regrets turning down the opportunity of hearing her correspondent read it, that she and her husband were prevented from visiting by a ‘very cold North East wind’. She sends news of Beatrice’s brother-in-law, Prince Alexander of Battenberg [who had been forced to abdicate as Prince of Bulgaria by the hostility of the Czar and Bismarck] before turning to the impending Jubilee, at which she would be very happy to have the Ode performed: ‘The universal feeling of loyalty and affection displayed on the occasion of my Jubilee is very gratifying to me; but your kind and sympathizing heart will understand me, when I say how much sorrow there is mingled in these rejoicings for me – when I feel that the dear great Husband to whom I, and the Country owe so much and who would have entered into all so warmly, cannot be by my side on that day [...] I shall feel so alone!’. A postscript offers further details of Prince Alexander’s misfortunes and encloses two letters [not present], which may interest Tennyson.

Tennyson was appointed poet laureate in November 1850 – Wordsworth having died in April (and Samuel Rogers having declined) – but he would not be granted his first audience with Queen Victoria until 1862: in the January of that year he published the verse dedication to open a new edition of Idylls of the King in memory of Albert, who had died in December 1861, and was duly brought before the queen, who expressed her appreciation and praised his verses. His Carmen Sæculare, an ode in honour of the queen, was published for her Jubilee in 1887. When Tennyson died in 1892, Victoria recorded the following diary entry: ‘A fine morning – I heard that dear old Ld Tennyson had breathed his last, a great national loss. He was a great poet, and his ideas were ever grand, noble, elevating. He was very loyal and always very kind and sympathising to me, quite remarkably so. What beautiful lines he wrote to me for my darling Albert, and for my children and Eddy [her grandson the duke of Clarence and Avondale]. He died with his hand on his Shakespeare, and the moon shining full into the window, and over him. A worthy end to such a remarkable man’.
Place of origin:England
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